APBoston Red Sox pitching coach Bob McClure, third from right, talks with starting pitcher Felix Doubront (61) as teammates listen in during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Seattle Mariners, Sunday, July 1, 2012, in Seattle.

By SETH LAKSO

BOSTON – It might have come as a shock to Bob McClure that the Red Sox fired him with six weeks still remaining in the season, but for the 60-year-old pitching coach, the writing was on the wall.

In a move designed to shake things up, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington insisted on Monday that McClure’s firing was due to the disappointing performance of Boston’s pitching staff this season, and not over any specific incident.

The Red Sox rank 11th in the American League in earned run average at 4.31 and have gone a combined 17-29 in games started by Josh Beckett or Jon Lester. There’s also the matter of Daniel Bard, a once elite reliever, whose transition to starting became a complete failure under McClure’s watch.

Assistant pitching coach Randy Niemann, who has a history of working with Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine (with the Mets from 1997-2002), will reportedly replace McClure through at least the reminder of the season.

“We felt like we needed to make a change to put our pitchers in the best position to do what they needed to do in the next six weeks,” Cherington told the Boston Globe on Monday.

Words Valentine echoed prior to Tuesday’s game.

“Bob’s been in the game a long time,” Valentine said. “He’s a real good baseball guy. And obviously coming into a new situation there were adjustments (getting to know each other) that he and I were making. As the year went on, I though we were making them. But at this time, with six weeks to go, we thought that maybe a different voice in the clubhouse would make a little difference.”

At a charity bowling event hosted by Josh Beckett on Monday, Clay Buchholz admitted that the timing of the move caught him off guard.

“It sort of took me by surprise,” Buchholz told the Globe. “I knew that the team probably wanted to make a move just to make something happen, I don’t know.”

“Mac, I had a really good relationship with him,” he continued. “I talked to him every day and it was an odd move to me, but that’s why it’s a business and the team’s going to do what it thinks it needs to do to win.”

Buchholz was one of the few pitchers to perform well under McClure, especially since the All-Star break, where the right-hander’s gone 3-1 with a 2.03 ERA.

Jon Lester, who was also at the charity event, understood why the move was made, but lamented that his performance was a contributing factor.

“It’s too bad that we had to make a move like that, but you’ve got to understand the nature of the beast as far as us not performing well,” he said. “You don’t ever want a coach to take responsibility. It’s a tough situation, but talking with Mac, he seems like he’s in a good place and hopefully he can move forward from here and go from there.”

Niemann becomes the fourth Red Sox pitching coach in the last four years, however Valentine believed the transition wouldn’t be a difficult one for the pitchers to make.

“Since Randy’s been here, I’m not sure (that it will be a difficult transition),” Valentine said. “I already thought of him as one of this year’s pitching coaches, right from the beginning. He just has the common sense approach to things. I think what he brings is what is needed, you know, a nice stabilizing force.”